EMA’s Patients' and Consumers' Working Party (PCWP) has re-elected Kaisa Immonen of the European Patients' Forum (EPF) as co-chair and the Healthcare Professionals' Working Party (HCPWP) has elected Ulrich Jäger of the European Hematology Association (EHA) as new co-chair. They will co-chair the meetings of their respective working parties together with Juan Garcia Burgos, Head of Public Engagement at EMA, for the next three years. The vote took place during the September 2019 meeting of both working parties.
Kaisa Immonen has extensive experience in European Union health policy and serves currently as Director of Policy of the EPF. Accepting the re-election for her second mandate, Ms Immonen said “The PCWP plays a vital role in supporting the Agency in its efforts, as well as acting as a watchdog to ensure that patient engagement is taken as a strategic priority. It will need careful planning and facilitation to ensure the PCWP continues to fulfil its role as a platform for exchange and discussion in the next three years, but also goes beyond it to keep advancing patients’ and consumers’ meaningful engagement in the work of EMA.”
Ulrich Jäger is a Professor of Hematology and Head of the Division of Hematology and Hemostaseology at the Medical University of Vienna. He follows Gonzalo Calvo in the role of co-chair of the HCPWP, who served the maximum of two three-year mandates.
“Healthcare professionals can provide EMA with a better understanding of how medicines are being used in clinical practice and the HCPWP is a key platform to facilitate this dialogue,” says Ulrich Jäger. “As a co-chair, my aim is to strengthen the involvement of healthcare professionals in EMA’s activities that improve and speed up access to new treatments for all European citizens.”
The PCWP and the HCPWP are pillars of EMA’s ever-increasing engagement with civil society. They provide recommendations to EMA and its scientific committees on all matters of interest to either patients and consumers or healthcare professionals in relation to medicines as well as to drive and monitor interactions between patients, consumers and healthcare professionals and the Agency in all areas of its work.
